


things you said

by quidhitch



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: I love my son, M/M, nurseypov ayooo, this is ninety five percent fluff tho i swear lolol, tw warning for a little passage with some pretty blatant racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 05:51:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8611180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quidhitch/pseuds/quidhitch
Summary: “Awww, looks like Dex appreciates a lady in uniform,” Nursey teases, tucking his feet a little further beneath Dex’s thighs. “You have a thing with the head cheerleader back in high school Dexy? Hold her pom poms and kiss her whatnot?”Dex seems to be contemplating something, and Nursey figures it’s one of his lame clapbacks like your mom’s a pom pom.  He brings the bottle to his mouth, smiling around the lip of it.“Actually, I’m more of a captain of the football team kinda guy.”Nursey chokes on his beer.





	

******things you said that surprised me**

Don’t get Nursey wrong, he loves a good Kegster – sweaty, loud, beer spilling down the front of his shirt, the Haus practically pulsing with a mix off Holster’s iPod – but he thinks there may or may not be something to say for just hanging out in the living room with the guys, smoking weed or watching TV or just talking, piled on top of each other across the couch and happily enclosed in the trademark Haus Bubble.

It’s almost better than the rush he gets from crowdsurfing or dancing on the kitchen table, he thinks, digging his toes further beneath Dex’s legs. Dex pauses just to throw a halfhearted glare in his direction before taking a swallow of beer. 

Something at the bottom of Nursey’s stomach flutters, immediately followed by a silent, internal berating.  _Get it together, you weirdo._

“-look, all I’m saying is Amy Penderson may or may not have been the love of my life, and because of those fucking LAX guys I’ll never know,” Ransom sighs, pretending to get worked up and wiping a fake tear from his eye.

Holster aggressively messes his hair, “It may be time to let her go, my dude.”

“It was three years ago, and you were buzzed,” Lardo deadpans, wrapping her knuckles on Ransom’s forehead, “classic cheerleader effect.”

“Cheerleader effect?” Dex pipes up, brow furling into that perfect knit, the one Nursey swears he spends half is life trying to create nowadays.

“Bunch of girls in a group, you think they’re hotter than they actually are,” Shitty explains, absentmindedly waving his hand, “yet another annoying construction of the patriarchy.”

“Oh,” Dex says, and then blushes, because he’s ridiculous and he can’t make it five minutes into a conversation with another human without having some sort of heat reaction. Nursey’s stomach flips again. “Not what I would’ve guessed.”

“Really?” Nurseys interjects, because he can’t stop himself, at this point, “What would you have guessed?”

“I don’t know,” Dex snaps, not because the question is particularly offensive yet, but rather because it’s Nursey, which requires he snap on principle, “cheerleaders are theoretically attractive, with their…. Pom-poms… Skirts and whatnot,” he waves his beer around as if it offers some sort of clarification.

“Oh yeah. A girl’s whatnot. Really gets me hot,” Ransom says, snickering.

“Shut up,” Dex flushes an even redder red, if that is possible.

“Awww, looks like Dex appreciates a lady in uniform,” Nursey teases, tucking his feet a little further beneath Dex’s thighs. “You have a thing with the head cheerleader back in high school Dexy? Hold her pom poms and kiss her whatnot?”

Dex seems to be contemplating something, and Nursey figures it’s one of his lame clapbacks like _your mom’s a pom pom_.  He brings the bottle to his mouth, smiling around the lip of it.

“Actually, I’m more of a captain of the football team kinda guy.”

Nursey chokes on his beer.

There’s a beat of silence while the whole team processes the information – Nursey is hacking up a lung – before they all explode into peals of laughter, Ransom and Holster gripping each other’s shoulders for support, Shitty all but tumbling off the couch.

“He got you good,” says Lardo between laughs, prodding Nursey’s shoulder so hard it hurts. “ _Savage_.”

“This is an iconic Haus living room moment,” Ransom says, shoving his hand in Holster’s back pocket presumably to dig around for his phone, “must snapchat and immortalize.”

There’s a pleased flush on Dex’s cheeks and it’s doing unfortunate things for Nursey’s blood pressure.

“You okay, Derek?” he asks, looking frustratingly chill.

“Your mom’s okay,” Nursey grumbles half-heartedly, tossing a pillow at Dex’s adorable, self-satisfied face. Dex grins and all he can think is I am _so_ , so fucked.

**things you said I wasn’t meant to hear**

“Nursey,” Bitty hums, and it’s the tone of voice that means he’s about to ask Nursey a favor, which almost elicits a high pitched whining noise if not for the chirp potential that expression undoubtedly opens up. He’s so comfortable on the couch, legs stretched luxuriously across the cushions and a still steaming plate of pie balanced on his stomach. Bitty might rescind pie privileges if he doesn’t answer, though.

“Yes, mom?”

“Go get Dex in from outside. His dinner’s going to get cold.”

Nursey quirks an eyebrow. “He’s still out there? Are you sure? Raking leaves takes, like, an hour. Tops.”

Bitty flashes him a look over back of the couch that says _you have literally never raked leaves in your life, Derek Nurse, please do not pretend to be an authority on the subject_. Derek flushes and reluctantly sets his pie on the coffee table, pushing up from the couch with a long-suffering sigh.

“Thanks, Nursey,” Bitty calls over his shoulder, already retreating into the kitchen probably to re-warm Dex’s food.

Nursey steps out onto the porch, the six o’clock air seeping through the thin fabric of his shirt and setting a chill to his bones. Dex is right under the tree by the lawn, just where Nursey left him, but it doesn’t look like he’s raking leaves anymore. He’s faced away from Nursey, sitting by the leaf pile criss-cross applesauce with a phone wedged between his ear and his shoulder.

Nursey doesn’t mean to listen, he really, really doesn’t, but he gets distracted by the fact the sweatshirt Dex is wearing is definitely his, stays out for a second longer than he needs to, and picks up on a bit of the conversation that’s way too enticing to turn away from.

“Yeah, mom, I uh. I guess there’s a… girl. I like. Maybe.”

Nursey forgets about the cold, forgets about Bitty waiting inside, forgets about everything but the way Dex’s voice gets a note or two higher and sweeter when he talks to his mom. This is so dangerous, he should not be hearing this conversation. He’s not _supposed_ to, there’s already guilt roiling in his stomach and he hasn’t heard a thing about the girl yet, he’s gotta turn around, he’s gotta–

“She’s completely out of my league, though. No, mom, I’m serious. So smart and funny and pretty.”

Isn’t Dex gay? Nursey kicks himself for assuming things, he never explicitly referenced his sexuality outside of that one conversation in the living room, but he’d just thought… Dex could be bi. Dex was bi? Fuck.

“All her clothes look about a thousand dollars apiece, too.”

Who was this girl? None of the Kappas Nursey has seen Dex chatting with at Kegsters are that classy. Angelica’s tube top for winter screw was nice, but Nursey knows what a thousand-dollar article looks like and it is not that.

“Um… we met through some of the hockey…things. Can’t stop thinking about her. She makes a killer grilled cheese, too.”

Okay, that is so not fair. Dex told Nursey _he_ made the best grilled cheese on the east coast just last weekend, and he had worked extremely hard for that begrudging compliment. Now he was revoking Nursey’s title for some girl he met twenty seconds ago? Inconsiderate.

“She makes me so nervous, mom. I never know what to say to her. I always feel like it comes out wrong. Like I’m being… I don’t know, mean.”

Nursey would smile at that if there wasn’t this uncomfortable scratching feeling in his chest. Of course Dex would resort to the pig-tail tugging form of flirting, it’s his reaction to any scrap of affection he’s shown. Nursey went in for a hug last week after their Princeton game and Dex allowed it for approximately two seconds before pushing him off and mumbling ‘ _nerd_ ’. No chill.

“No, mom. I don’t think I’ll tell her. We’ve got a really good friendship going on, you know?” Nursey could have sworn he knew all of Dex’s friends – not in the creepy keeping-tabs-on-your-friend way but the much more affectionate keeping-tabs-on-your-fellow-d-man way. Whatever. Ransom and Holster totally do weird shit like that all the time.

“It’s just hard sometimes. We were in the library today, and I barely got any work done. It was so stupid, I couldn’t stop looking and he wasn’t even doing anything interesting, just reading.”

It takes Nursey a second.

He.

_He._

They were in the library together today and Nursey had his nose buried in _The Epic of Gilgamesh_ and Dex just outed himself, to his mom, does he realize, should Nursey say something–

“Shit, did I really?” Dex’s following laugh is awkward and tense and Nursey sees right through it, his heart completely pulling apart in his chest. “Sorry, I meant she. I’m just, uh, reading something else right now and got a bit distracted. …Yeah, actually, I am kind of busy. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

Nursey knows that Dex’s phone call is ending and he really should be coming up with a plan for what he’s going to say when he turns around and finds Nursey eavesdropping on him like a crazy stalker, but he can’t seem to process any thought that’s not _DEX LIKES ME. DEX THINKS I’M FUNNY. DEX THINKS I’M PRETTY. DEX LIKES MY CLOTHES._

And so when Dex gets up and turns around and sees Nursey on the porch, he tenses up and flushes in a very obvious way, and asks “how long have you been out here” in a terse voice.

Thankfully, Nursey is chill and great under pressure.

“LITERALLY TWO SECONDS,” the pitch of his voice is all over the place and he’s pretty sure his voice cracks at end of it. _Nailed it_.

Dex narrows his eyes at him suspiciously, but after a few seconds of scrutiny he seems to let it go. “Whatever, freak. Let’s just go inside. I’m fucking starved.”

Nursey says something smart along the lines of “sounds like a good okay” and follows Dex inside with a slightly dumbstruck look on his face. _He told his mom about me_. He is happy and terrified and hopeful and warm all at the same time, and if Bitty asks him why he’s so quiet at dinner and all he can do is smile around a mouthful of pie, well – he’ll deal with that knowing stare later.

**things you said with too many miles between us**

Nursey does a semester in Barcelona his junior year (against the advice of many of his advisers – “you want to take your qualifying exam overseas?” they’d asked, “chill” he’d responded). And he couldn’t be happier, really. The food is amazing, the people are even cooler, and his comfy summer wardrobe is relevant again. There’s just. One problem.

3,655 miles.

“…Nursey?”

Nursey closes his eyes, his chest feeling hollow as it sinks in just how far away Dex is. It’s been weeks since Nursey’s felt the curve of Dex’s shoulder fit perfectly into his palm, pressed his freezing toes against Dex’s calf under the blanket during movie night, felt the backs of their hands have brushed together on the way to class (totally by accident of course).

“Nurse, isn’t it three in the morning over there?”

“Well. Yeah.”

There’s a silence on the other end of the line, and Nursey closes his eyes and sees the three little lines that form over Dex’s brow. He imagines smoothing them out with this fingers. It isn’t nearly enough.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Nursey sighs, rolling his shoulders and looking at the glow-up stars stuck to the ceiling of his host family’s guest room. It belongs to their youngest son, who’s away at boarding school now. “I’m good. Are you good?”

“Um, yeah,” Dex says, a lecture poised on the tip of his tongue, “but why are you calling me if it’s three in the morning and it’s not an emergency?”

“I didn’t look at your schedule when I left, so. I didn’t know when you had class during the day.”

“Okay,” Dex says carefully.

“I didn’t want to miss you.”

“Oh.”

“…I do miss you, though.”

There’s a brief pause on the end of the line, and then Dex laughs, soft and quiet like maybe Chowder’s napping on his bed or people are studying downstairs. “Oh, man, Derek. How long did you spend practicing that?”

“Depends, how much did it work?” Nursey’s nostalgia is a palpable thing, bittersweet and tucked under his tongue.

Dex laughs again, and if Nursey holds the phone really close to his ear it’s like they’re lying right next to each other on the bed, Dex on his side with an arm thrown right across his stomach. He takes a breath, long and slow.

“You should probably go to sleep, Nurse.” Dex’s voice is so soft right now. Why is he only ever soft when Nursey’s too far away to properly feel it?

“Probably.”

Another pause. Nursey can hear him inhale, long and slow.

“So,” Dex says, finally, and Nursey pictures him closing his laptop and leaning back in his chair, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and folding an arm over his chest. “How’s it going over there? Found your moose yet?”

Nursey grins. He feels a little silly, grinning alone in the dark with a phone pressed to his ear and a thousand fireworks going off in his chest. Whatever. “Moose, Poindexter? Seriously?”

It’s seven AM before they hang up. Nursey has class in two hours. It’s too hot for it but he tugs the covers over his shoulder, hugs a pillow to his chest, and presses his still-smiling face deep into the sheets. He’s 3,655 miles away, but they suddenly smell like home.

**things you said didn’t say at all**

“I really don’t know how to dance,” Dex shouts in Nursey’s ear, and Nursey laughs. It’s a miracle he even managed to peel Dex off the wall, and an even bigger miracle that he’s letting Nursey put his hands on his waist and talk directly into his ear right now. Nursey thinks a semester away has made Dex forget just how much they don’t get along, and he’s planning to take full advantage of that as long as it lasts.

“It’s not rocket science, Poindorkster,” Nursey shouts over the music. Dex keeps trying to wipe sweat off his forehead and Nursey wants to tell him to stop, tell him that he looks good like this, flushed and grinning and maybe a little careless, but he doesn’t trust himself not to quote Romeo and Juliet or something equally terrible.

“That’s for sure. I could probably handle the rocket science,” Dex’s hands make their way to Nursey’s hips, tentative at first but then a little more confident, his fingers pushing through the loops in Nursey’s jeans. Chill is out the window.

“You’re not half bad,” Nursey lies, because Dex may be really hot but he is also really, really awkward, and there is a level of stiffness in his shoulders Nursey did not think was physically possible.

Dex smiles and rolls his eyes, “and you’re full of shit.”

Nursey can’t really say anything to that, so he laughs and presses closer to Dex, simultaneously terrified and enamored with the points of contact where Dex’s fingers have slipped beneath the hem of Nursey’s shirt. He’s danced with people before – he’s danced with _a lot_ of people before, he knows how to do it, okay, you roll your hips and you half listen to the music and you don’t worry about looking dumb – but the experience is made so much more intimate with Dex. He’s struck with the unhelpful thought that this was probably not the best idea.

He looks up at Dex and his movements slow. It takes Dex a second to notice he’s staring, and he slows a little too. He looks confused but still happy, and when he opens his mouth, probably to ask something stupid like ‘is there food on my face?”, Nursey reaches up to push Dex’s sweaty hair off his forehead.

And then Dex looks like he’s going to say something entirely different, his face so close to Nursey’s that he’s practically nosing along his cheek. Their bodies are still pressed together, and Nursey can’t really forget the way he felt Dex’s breath stutter across his neck not twenty seconds ago when Nursey’s thigh was very nearly wedged between his legs.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Nursey asks, except that he doesn’t, because he’s a horrible coward who backs into Ransom shouting for Jello shots instead.

**things you said that made me nervous**

Nursey is initially very amused at Dex’s objection to being featured in Lardo’s art portfolio with the rest of the team. She needles him about it for weeks, sticks him in a room with the freshman who snores during away games, and routinely gives everyone at practice fruit snacks except for him. That, Nursey thinks, is what finally causes him to relent.

But even then, the drama is not over. He complains about it to Nursey for days beforehand, grumbling about the mock-ups Lardo showed him and how they all have flowers and sparkles and a distinct lack of clothing, and really that’s when Nursey’s hackles should have raised, when he should have realized he needed to stay as far away from this exhibition as possible if he wanted to keep his giant gay crush a secret, but for some reason it didn’t click.

It doesn’t click, until Nursey strolls into the art studio to pick Dex up for lunch and finds him still posing, slumped against the wall half-naked with a flower crown perched on his messy hair, his head tipped back, a lazy sort of irritation present on his pointed features.

There are freckles…everywhere. And there is some sort of gold dust Lardo brushes on his collar and his cheekbones? It should be a small mercy that he’s at least wearing jeans – Nursey did his shoot in a pair of tight black briefs – but they’re _Those Jeans_ that are a little worn and cling to his ass and make him look like some sort of sexy stripper repairman.

Nursey very nearly turns on his heel and leaves.

“Sorry Nursey,” Lardo says, smirking at him over the corner of her eye. She is beautiful and powerful and majestic, but in this moment all Nursey can think is what an evil little gremlin. “I need him for, like. Ten more minutes?”

“I think I’m allergic to the glitter. My chest itchy,” Dex grumbles, and Nursey should be chirping him right now, but he can’t get it together to say anything. His tongue is dead and useless in his mouth. Dex looks… like some sort of demigod, straight out of Greek lyric. _My blood with gentle horrors thrilled_ , his brain uselessly supplies.

“You’re such a whiner,” Lardo sighs, pulling the camera back from her eye and clicking through the shots. Nursey has to tell himself to calm down and not think about how there is going to be photographic evidence of this look, blown up and taking up half of a giant wall for Lardo’s exhibit. In, out, in, out.

“I know I said I’d get through this with minimal complaining but seriously, Lards. Am I good?” Dex asks. Nursey can tell he wants to run his hand through his hair.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lardo says, going about gathering her equipment. “I think I have everything I need.”

Dex heaves what Nursey thinks is a dramatic sigh of relief and grabs at the sweatshirt that lays crumpled to his left out of frame. He tugs it on in a quick, jerky motion that highlights the line of his shoulders, and it’s a wonder Nursey hasn’t dropped his coffee cup yet because there’s really only so much a man can take.

“Hey,” Dex says, as if he’s just realizing Nursey’s here. The flower crown is tilted on his head. Nursey reaches to take it off and realizes that’s probably a weird thing for a bro to do, so he shoves his hands in his peacoat instead. “Sorry that took so long. You’re probably starving.”

“Yeah. Starving,” Nursey repeats. Dex should really wipe off the makeup on his face. It’s just indecent. “I can... um. Wait. If you want to wash your face and stuff.”

“Oh! Yeah, that’d be great actually. This stuff is kind of itchy,” Dex offers Nursey a boyish half-smile, and Nursey nods slowly. Like an idiot. “I’ll meet you back out here in ten.”

He claps a hand on Nursey’s shoulder as he leaves, possibly the friendliest, most casual touch in the history of friendly and casual touches and yet Nursey’s whole body feels like it’s on fire. _The subtle flame ran quick through all my vital frame._

The second he can hear the click of the bathroom door from down the hall, Nursey starts groaning and Lardo starts cackling.

“You’re evil,” Nursey says plaintively, trudging towards her, and draping himself on her tiny frame. “I hate you so much.”

“Do you, though?” Lardo asks, patting his curls gently before shoving him off. “Do you really?”

“You probably didn’t need those last two pictures. You probably let him remain all posed up like that just to make me suffer.”

Lardo hums, slinging her camera bag over her shoulder and bracing a hand on her hip. There is an all-knowing smile on her face, “That would be cruel, wouldn’t it?”

“Why are you doing this to me?” Nursey asks helplessly, shoving the coffee he regrets getting Lardo in her direction.

She accepts it with a small, sympathetic smile. “It’s for your own good, Nursey. You gotta do something about it before someone else does.”

And with that chilling little point, Lardo pushes past him to leave and Dex reappears in the doorway. His face is scrubbed clean of the glitter and the makeup but he’s still beautiful, his face raw and relaxed and happy. Nursey’s favorite freckle today is the one slightly separated from the cluster on his cheek, like a drip of paint the artist didn’t mean to let slip from the brush but ends up working in harmony with the canvas anyways.

“We’re not getting fucking sushi again,” Dex says, waving bye to Lardo and gesturing for Nursey to follow him down the hall, “if I had to suffer through that sashimi tempeh bullshit all last week, you’re getting a burger today. There’s a food cart that does vegan on fifth. Let’s go.”

“Sashimi and tempeh are two completely different things,” Nursey says, slightly miserable as Dex throws an arm over his shoulders, and brings their faces way too close together, “tempeh is not even a sushi thing.”

“Yeah whatever, Nurse,” Dex says, giving him a noogie that ruins his artfully disheveled look. His arm tightens around Nursey’s shoulders, and he’s giving him one of those easy smiles that doesn’t come naturally for Dex, and all Nursey can think is _help_. _My feeble pulse forgot to play; I fainted, sunk, and died away._

**things you said when you were out of your element**

Nursey is struck with a disorienting blend of emotions when he sees Dex push his way through the student-run coffee shop doors. He doesn’t think Dex has ever even been in The Paradox, much preferring Annie’s to avoid the “stinky hipsters with overly long coffee orders”. Nursey tries to stifle a smile at how distinctly out of place Dex looks, his ratty SMH hoodie stretched tight across his shoulders.

“Um, Derek,” Nursey’s friend Caleb says, and a glance back tells him he’s looking at Dex, too. In fact… everyone at his table is looking at Dex.

“Guys, please stop staring,” Nursey says, rubbing a hand over his face.

There are a series of murmurs around the table that range from “I don’t think so” to “an unrealistic expectation”. He loves his shameless poetry friends, but he also kind of really hates his shameless poetry friends.

“You did not tell us he looked like that,” Aminta says, flashing Nursey a judgmental look over the rim of her coffee mug.

“It’s a recent development,” Nursey sighs, “He used to be frecklier. And orange-ier.”

“I mean,” Saga interrupts, her too-big glasses slipping down her nose, “how recent? Because you’ve been waxing poetic about him since freshman year, so—“

“—can we possibly not bring that up tonight? In fact, any of my incriminating work is completely off limits tonight or I’m never paying for coffee again.”

“We’d be doing you a favor,” Nursey really does not like the way Bodie the serial dater is looking at Dex right now. “No one who looks like _that_ stays single for long.”

“You’ve got to get in there,” Aminta pitches in.

“Isn’t this supposed to be a safe space? I’m feeling un-safe right now,” Nursey grumbles. And now he’s left Dex in the lurch, looking nervously around this hipster coffee shop for five minutes while he wrangles his embarrassing friends. He turns back towards them one last time, a warning look on his face, “seriously, guys. Best behavior.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We love republicans.”

Nursey rolls his eyes at them and pushes back from the table, catching Dex’s gaze from across the room. His hand raises in a lame kind of half-wave, and Nursey hopes the look in his eye communicates he’s already judging him for it. He can’t not notice the way Dex seems marginally more relaxed at having found Nursey, a small, wry smile shaping his mouth as they meet up.

“Hey,” Nursey says, throwing an arm around Dex’s shoulders, “sorry, it’s kind of crazy in here.”

“Yeah,” Dex looks genuinely surprised, glancing around the coffee shop with a curious look in his eye, “I didn’t even know this place existed.”

“It’s a whole new world out here, Poindexter.”

Dex rolls his eyes. “If someone offers to put Tempeh in my coffee, I’m leaving,”

“I’m starting to think you have no conception of what Tempeh is,” Nursey says, and Dex’s responding grin sends Nursey (and probably the three people nearest to him) to the fainting couch.

**things you said when i was scared**

Nursey isn’t really sure if this is a date, but he’s afraid if he asks Dex will get so preoccupied with giving him a suitable answer that he’ll stop laughing and smiling altogether, and Nursey isn’t willing to make that sacrifice just yet.

They’re both so happy. Dex’s arm is looped through his and they’re going to get ice cream after seeing a really good movie and Dex is picking leaves out of his hair like casual touching is something they can do now, which Nursey is very excited to explore the possibilities of, and Nursey isn’t even really paying attention to the two guys who have come up uncomfortably close beside them.

It’s only when Dex’s jaw goes from loose and relaxed to bowstring tight that he even glances at them, and the second he picks up on their conversation his mood darkens.

He doesn’t pay attention to the specifics, he doesn’t pay attention to much of anything but keeping his head down and walking forward. Even though he has friends like Ransom and Chowder who’ve helped him understand that things that came out of the lily-white mouths at Andover weren’t okay, his moms taught him better than to put himself at risk for people who refuse to be educated.

He tugs the sleeve of his jacket over the Black Lives Matter bracelets around his wrist and ducks his head. He draws his arm away from Dex and breathes in and out. They have Swastikas drawn on their foreheads, but Nursey is not going to turn into the brute they want him to be.

He and Dex don’t talk the rest of the way back to the car. He kind of forgets Dex is there, too busy trying not to get pulled into the riptide of anger that will consume him for the rest of the night if he lets it. He breathes in and out. He texts his mom. It’s fine. He’s fine.

“I’m sorry,” Dex says, and Nursey looks over at him to see a tight, locked jaw, Dex’s fingers white on the steering wheel.

He doesn’t want to do this right now, assuage Dex’s white guilt and pretend like everything’s fine. He can’t find it in himself to say anything conciliatory.

“I’m sorry,” Dex repeats, and he looks so earnest that Nursey forgets for a second about the riptide and the men from the street, “For all the stupid stuff I said when we first met. I know it wasn’t the same as drawing a fucking Swastika on my forehead, but…” he pauses and rubs a hand over his face, and Nursey knows he’s thinking about being a gay kid in rural Maine, “that shit still hurts. And it builds up. So I’m sorry.” He adds on, almost like an afterthought, “you don’t have to say anything. Let’s just go home.”

Nursey nods and leans his head back against the seat. Dex turns on the radio and pulls out of the parking lot. He feels a rough, calloused hand on his arm, and he maybe relaxes just a bit.

“It’s a good fucking thing we got out of there,” Dex says, and Nursey opens one eye to look at him, “I know you’re too noble to beat the shit out of those bastards, but I’m definitely not. Jesus.”

Nursey closes his eyes and squeezes Dex’s hand, and despite the great effort it takes to feel anything but anger and hurt in that moment, he manages a smile.

**things you said at the kitchen table**

Nursey and Dex are notoriously bad at beer pong. Bad like Ransom and Holster came very close to banning them from it on several occasions just to, quote unquote, preserve the integrity of the Haus.

It’s not entirely either of their faults. Nursey just knocks over the cups before he has a chance to aim, and Dex is really only precise when he’s writing code or tuning up a car. Still – with enough tub juice in them, the tadpoles screaming about how built they are right in Nursey’s ear, and a whole night of dancing and amping each other up, they’re pushed to the edge of the table, balls in hand, confident that this time they’re gonna make away like kings.

It’s a massacre. Three shots in and Lardo already looks a minute away from tears, Chowder has given up on cheerleading, and Caitlin Farmer is rubbing her hands together, ready to step in and save them from the embarrassment.

Nursey knows he should be a little ashamed – especially because some of the LAX bros are here tonight – but there’s something especially endearing about the way Dex shoots him a murderous glare over the lip of his beer every time he knocks something over.

They’re eventually exiled to the kitchen, and Nursey is just thankful Rans and Holster didn’t make them do a naked lap around the Haus like last time. It’s too fucking cold and his sensitive nerves can’t handle Dex’s bare butt on top of everything else tonight.

“Turn the light on. I wanna make Mac N Cheese,” Nursey says, feeling along a random wall about 5 feet over from where the light switch actually is.

“We’re out of Mac N Cheese,” Dex grumbles. He’s trying to hold Nursey up and drink at the same time, and it’s not really working out. Nursey suspects he’s a lot more sober than he wants to be.

“Why are we always out of Mac N Cheese?”

“Everything is terrible,” Dex agrees in a rare moment of solidarity. Nursey smiles and presses a sloppy kiss on his cheek.

“You have no concept of personal space,” Dex says, but Nursey can hear the laughter in his voice, and it’s exhilarating.

“Some guys are into that, you know.”

“Too into it,” if Nursey didn’t know any better, he’d say Dex sounded slightly saltier than usual, “why do you think we’re hiding in here?”

“Because you’re trying to get me alone and take advantage of me,” Nursey teases, stumbling backwards and into the edge of the island. Dex’s features are just barely illuminated by the moonlight coming through the window, but he looks like he wants to pull Nursey back up against him. Or maybe that’s just Nursey projecting.

“You’re such a flirt,” Dex rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the kitchen sink. Dex hums in agreement as he hops up on the island ungracefully. It’s a miracle he doesn’t come crashing to the floor, Dex looks ready to swoop in and catch him at any second.

“Ugh,” Nursey says, looking away from Dex and picking at a thread on his jeans. He wants to do shots. He also wants to take a nap with his face pressed into Dex’s neck. “it’s one of those times.”

Dex is clearly fighting a smile as he responds, “yeah?”

“ _Chyeah_ ,” Nursey says, because it’s suddenly urgent for Dex to understand this, “one of those times where I want to kiss you but I know s’not… S’not the right _moment_.”

Dex doesn’t exactly look surprised. They’ve been dancing around each other for weeks now, ever since Nursey got back from his study abroad there was something different and they both knew it. There’s been countless times when each thought the other might lean in only to be interrupted by the coach or the team or alarms going off in someone’s head screeching _DON’T RUIN THE FRIENDSHIP_.

“It’s not,” Dex agrees, taking a sip of his beer. “The right moment, I mean.”

“I know. Still wanna kiss you.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Nursey lets out a long, dramatic sigh and hops off the counter, stumbling a bit as he goes. Dex reaches out to steady him and a bit of beer sloshes out of his can. They’re kind of a mess.

“You wanna go to the bookstore for Mac N Cheese?” Nursey asks, unable to stop himself from tangling his fingers through Dex’s.

Dex smiles and brings their hands up to kiss Nursey’s knuckles. Nursey’s heart melts right into his thousand dollar shoes. “Sure. Let’s go.”

**things you said when we were happy**

“No, no, no,” Nursey says between laughs, tipping his head back, fingers curling into the fabric of Dex’s shirt. He shifts a little in Dex’s lap, and Dex grumbles about how it’s not doing wonders for his concentration on their ‘lesson’. Nursey shushes him and says, “It’s like.. a long ‘o’. Amoooor.”

“A-morrrrrrrre,” Dex mimics, probably purposefully incorrectly just to annoy Nursey. Even still, Nursey can’t help but savor moments like this, early mornings when they don’t have practice and Dex is sore from their last game, unable to do anything wrap himself around Nursey and rest. Right now, when Dex’s skin still smells like sleep and his hair is sticking every which way in some exaggerated version of a bedhead, Nursey has trouble denying him anything.

“You’re hopeless,” Nursey sighs, curling his arms around Dex’s neck and pressing a kiss to his mouth that leaves him breathless. “Just gonna have to win over my family based on good looks and ch-… Well, good looks alone.”

Dex pinches his side for that and Nursey yelps, the hazy, love-struck air around him clearing for just a second. But Dex hooks his hands in the backs of Nursey’s knees and brings him impossibly closer, and just like that it’s back.

“They’re gonna like you,” Nursey promises, rubbing a slow circle on the back of Dex’s neck.

“Few people like me,” Dex points out, and Nursey sees him let just a fraction of the anxiety he’s been feeling slip through his lips.

“I like you.”

“You didn’t at first.”

“You didn’t like me either,” Nursey points out, and Dex flushes a pretty pink color.

“Well,” Dex starts to explain, leaning back from Nursey and looking at a spot just to the right of his head, “I’m starting to think that was more of a ‘difficulty internalizing my gay feelings’ thing.”

“You don’t say?” Nursey asks lightly, biting down on his grin (it’s getting past-optimal-aesthetics wide at this point). Dex leans forward and licks his cheek in retaliation, and Nursey makes a strangled sort of noise of dissent.

“You’re disgusting,” he half laughs, squirming away as Dex wipes his face with the sleeve of his shirt. He pauses, and they fall back into comfortable silence.

Nursey goes in to kiss him again, and just before their lips touch Dex pushes back and asks, “but what if they don’t like me?”

Nursey makes an exasperated noise in the back of his throat and fixes Dex with a look. “Chill. They’re going to like you,” he reassures again, leaning down to nip at Dex’s jaw. Dex’s back curves into a slight arch completely involuntarily. He straightens out immediately and glares at Nursey - but there’s no venom in it. There hasn’t been for a long time.

“Stop trying to distract me,” he says, even as his hand comes up to tangle in Nursey’s hair.

“Stop getting so easily distracted,” Nursey counters, making his way languidly along the side of Dex’s neck, “look, I promise if my mom thinks you’re too white for me- “

“- I am not _that_ white - “

“-I’ll work tirelessly on her until she’s planning our wedding.”

Nursey realizes what he just said and goes completely firetruck, fully aware that if this had happened just a month ago, Dex would have pushed Nursey off his lap, ran away, and stopped talking to him for a week. 

Now, though? He just smirks and asks with raised brows, “our wedding, huh?”

“Whatever,” Nursey says, brushing some of Dex’s hair into his eyes.

Dex blows it back away and tugs Nursey down for a kiss. “Yeah,” he responds, and Nursey smiles against his mouth, “whatever.”

**Author's Note:**

> the poem referenced is an ambrose phillips translation of sappho. hope you guys are doing okay. come chat with me on tumblr at quidhitch.


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